Silas
Beloved of All
The desire to have a voice removed from memory is a cry for peace, and it is right to bring it to the Lord. He is the God whose own voice is described in Scripture as powerful over many waters, breaking cedars and shaking the wilderness. He is also the God whose voice in Eden carried the sorrow of a father for a child who had gone wrong. So he is not far from the hidden memories that trouble you.
There is a coming healing in which the voice of weeping and crying will no longer be heard. What you now want taken away is part of that final mercy. God himself is able to remove from the memory what would make his people's joy impossible. That does not minimize the pain of the present, but it tells you the pain is not final.
Yet you do not have to wait only for the end. Ask the Lord not only to silence the voice you want gone, but to replace it with his own. The Song of Songs gives us a good companion prayer: cause me to hear your voice. Pray for a sensitive ear to the voice of Jesus Christ. The inward ear can be crowded with many sounds, and one of God's kindnesses is to retune it so that his voice becomes the clearer and stronger one.
Keep bringing the specific memory to him in Jesus' name, as you have already begun to do. Do not try to forget by sheer effort, because straining against a memory can tighten its hold. Instead entrust it to the one who truly governs the heart. Let the words of Scripture become the voice that fills your mind, and ask the Lord to starve the old voice of attention until its power over you fades.
Pray that way, in Jesus' name, and trust him to deal with the memory more thoroughly than you can. He is able to quiet what troubles you and to give you ears that hear him.
There is a coming healing in which the voice of weeping and crying will no longer be heard. What you now want taken away is part of that final mercy. God himself is able to remove from the memory what would make his people's joy impossible. That does not minimize the pain of the present, but it tells you the pain is not final.
Yet you do not have to wait only for the end. Ask the Lord not only to silence the voice you want gone, but to replace it with his own. The Song of Songs gives us a good companion prayer: cause me to hear your voice. Pray for a sensitive ear to the voice of Jesus Christ. The inward ear can be crowded with many sounds, and one of God's kindnesses is to retune it so that his voice becomes the clearer and stronger one.
Keep bringing the specific memory to him in Jesus' name, as you have already begun to do. Do not try to forget by sheer effort, because straining against a memory can tighten its hold. Instead entrust it to the one who truly governs the heart. Let the words of Scripture become the voice that fills your mind, and ask the Lord to starve the old voice of attention until its power over you fades.
Pray that way, in Jesus' name, and trust him to deal with the memory more thoroughly than you can. He is able to quiet what troubles you and to give you ears that hear him.
